I have been migrating from Windows XP to Mac OS X as my primary home computing solution. Why? Because I’m looking for entirely new reasons to hate computers, reasons that Linux and Windows just cannot provide.

The migration process has made me very aware of data investment and the cost of migrating platforms when you have been using one for a long time. This applies to closed and open software alike. When switching from Linux to Windows XP and then to Mac OS X, I have stayed with Mozilla’s Firefox web browser and Thunderbird mail client. Why not try more integrated solutions such as Apple’s Safari and Mail apps? Frankly, because I already have so much data invested into Mozilla’s solutions, and because it is absolutely trivial to migrate an entire installation between machines and even platforms (find the main data directory, copy the thing wholesale to its counterpart location on another machine, and update the top-level profiles.ini file with the correct directory path).

Apple’s iTunes presented a bigger challenge. I scanned many blogs for a solution and finally hit upon something that worked. I’m pretty sure I’m expected to blog about exactly how I got my iTunes library migration to work.

Problem statement:
Migrate an existing iTunes library from Windows XP to Mac OS X. Latest version of all OSes and iTunes at the time of this writing (iTunes 8.0(35) on Mac; whatever the latest iTunes 8.0 on Windows is).

What worked:

• On Windows iTunes, “Consolidate library” — make sure the entire library is under iTunes management
• browse to “My Documents\My Music\” and copy the entire iTunes\ directory up to a shared network drive, whole
• On Mac OS, exit iTunes if it is running
• go to Music/ directory in home directory and delete existing iTunes directory (this assumes you have not accumulated any media there yet or else this will destroy it)
• copy iTunes/ directory from shared network drive, whole, into the Music/ directory
• this is iTunes 8 so delete the iTunes Library Genius.itdb file that just got copied over or else suffer an iTunes #13026 error
• important, “secret-sauce”-style step: press and hold the Option key while invoking iTunes; this will make iTunes prompt for an existing library; navigate to and select Music/iTunes/iTunes Library.itl

And that’s how I solved the problem for myself. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to hold down some random meta-key while invoking the program to attain the desired behavior. Somehow, magically, iTunes is able to sort out all of the music paths. I don’t know what format the .itl file takes but my best guess is that it must store paths relative to the top level iTunes directory. What I know is that all the media shows up correctly as does the proper metadata, a.k.a., my year+ data investment.

Anyway, if you want to try to replicate my steps, I hope you’re migrating fresh and don’t have anything valuable on the destination machine.

What didn’t work:

• Monkeying with the plaintext XML file. Have I ever mentioned how much XML annoys me? Several blogs and forums offered the solution of copying all media but none of the database files, just the XML files with manually modified absolute path names. This actually seems quite reasonable but perhaps it’s iTunes 8 that isn’t fooled by this.
• Transfer via iPod: This is evidently an official Apple solution but is unworkable for me since my library is larger than my iPod.
• Transfer via series of optical discs: This is another official Apple solution. Allegedly, it backs up your library and associated metadata to a series of DVDs and another computer with iTunes is just supposed to notice the disc and start restoring. I tried this. iTunes wrote the first of a series of DVDs. Then it prompted me for the second while it kept spinning the DVD up and down. When it finally surrendered the first disc and I inserted the second disc… iTunes just sort of forgot what it was doing and blew off the remainder of the backup operation.
• Probably a few other failed approaches that I am blocking out right now…

It’s a nerdy place to live, this northern California region commonly known as Silicon Valley. In 20 minutes of driving around on a Sunday afternoon, I saw the license plates ‘UID ZRO’ and ‘GNU FAN’. For fun, I searched and found a reference to a ‘UID ZRO’ license plate. The post refers to a truck, but it was also written 9 years ago. I guess that’s the kind of vanity plate that one holds onto. However, the blog’s picture depicts the Atlanta, GA skyline. This would imply that there are 2 different geeks in 2 different states that had the same geeky idea for a nerdy license plate.

Then there was the time I saw the Ferrari in this region with the license place ‘TREO’.

And while I’m rambling about geeked-out license plates, I would be remiss if I did not mention once seeing ‘666-FSF’ in my old town. It’s highly likely that this was just a standard issue sequential plate that had an unfortunate number. But there’s also the outside chance that the automobile owner wanted to make a statement about the Free Software Foundation.

At work, I have been tasked with updating the Flash Player’s SWF and FLV specs for Flash Player 10. If you have an interest the documentation of multimedia formats, give the specs a read and email me with suggestions for how the specs could be more clear (and correct). I wanted to send out this solicitation during this last round of updates but the docs still had some pesky licensing terms that scared off some folks. Those ominous licensing terms were removed as part of the Open Screen Project. Here are the current links:

• SWF spec
• FLV spec

I thought this call would be more appropriate for my personal, technical blog with a narrower interest rather than on my more broad corporate blog. Do me a favor, though, and don’t ask that the formal specs describe the intricate details for On2 VP6 or Nelly-Moser.

I scavenged this from a spent shop today:

“The Ultimate DVD Demo” alleges to flex the full capabilities of a DVD player (all kinds of audio tracks, audio encodings, viewing angles, subtitles– basically everything that your DVD remote has a button for). I wish I possessed this back when I was first heavily involved in xine development circa 2002; it would have been handy for testing and verification.